The marketing landscape for businesses is no longer limited to traditional ways. Social media has been humongous in achieving business goals in recent years. These channels have helped many entrepreneurs strengthen their digital marketing campaigns.

Among the popular social media platforms you can use to promote your business is TikTok. Although behind Facebook and Instagram, TikTok is still among the most valuable media brands globally. For this reason, many companies are using this medium to boost their online presence and sales.

Beefing up your digital marketing strategy using social media platforms like TikTok can reach more potential customers. Doing this is especially critical if you are running a small business or planning to establish one. So you should understand how to leverage social media for success.

As a small business owner, you might find it challenging to put yourself out there. To help you out, here’s a guide on harnessing TikTok’s full marketing potential for your venture.

What is TikTok?
TikTok is a popular social media application focusing on sharing short-form videos. It was launched by a Chinese technology company named ByteDance in 2016. Since then, the platform has gained significant popularity across the globe.

TikTok may differ from other social media platforms because its algorithms target users’ interests through the “For You” page. On the other hand, some marketing experts say it combines the user engagement features used by social media apps such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

 TikTok was initially used to publish videos ranging from 15 to 60 seconds. Users can put anything on these short videos, including music, sound effects, filters, voiceovers, and stickers. They can also duet and stitch videos from other creators.

Most topics used in TikTok are for entertainment and comedy. As time passed, the app became a space to learn essential knowledge, allowing creators to publish videos for infotainment purposes. Infotainment is entertaining yet informational content by influencers, industry professionals, and other digital content creators. Some examples are educational videos incorporating trending dances, sounds, captions, or effects.

As TikTok grew in popularity, it became a platform for marketing promotions ideal for businesses. Many industry niches, such as beauty, fashion, finance, music, and food, have videos posted in the app that many people watch. This format eventually enabled companies to sell their products and services, making TikTok a valuable avenue for digital marketing.

The Benefits of TikTok for Small Businesses
With the power TikTok holds in digital marketing, your small business can build an online presence and gain customers when you use it. This section will explain why small businesses increasingly use this medium to promote their brands and why you should try it.

Establish brand identity
All businesses should know what kind of branding they want to present to the general public, specifically their target audience. This concerns your brand identity or the image you give to your customers. Your brand includes your business name, design (colors, graphics, fonts), social media tone, advertising humor, mission, vision, and values.

In TikTok, you can establish your brand identity by connecting with its audiences. Content sharing in this app is usually personal and casual, which are excellent approaches to attracting prospective customers. They allow you to maximize your brand’s creative aspects, making your business well-known and trustworthy to customers.

Build brand awareness
Brand identity is connected with brand awareness. Maintaining a high brand awareness allows more people to become familiar with your business. It lets you gain brand recognition, resulting in more client acquisition to increase sales.

Brand awareness helps your audiences understand your products, services, and company values. These are integral to your brand equity, determining your business value beyond products and services. 

Reach your target audience better
TikTok now has a global audience. Every content published here may reach different segments of users, which is ideal for your venture. Even if you’re not targeting a particular niche, they can see your content and become interested in your brand. This allows you to attain significant user engagement that extends to a larger audience.

Reaching different audience segments can help your business attract target customers better. TikTok algorithms can work to bring your videos to prospective customers through the “For You” section.

Increase click-through rates and conversions
Through TikTok, you can also increase your click-through rates and conversions. The former is the volume of users clicking your site, which can boost traffic. Meanwhile, the latter are the prospective customers who are enticed to avail of your products or services.

When users come across your content and they find it engaging, they’re likely to visit your website to learn more about your business. Their visits may turn them into loyal customers, building long-term growth for your venture.

How To Use TikTok To Promote Your Small Business
You can’t just publish TikTok videos and call it a day. You need to consider many things before putting your content out there. You should create a TikTok business account if you don’t have one yet. If you already have one, here’s how to use the app to better promote your brand.

Research and understand the trends among users
The first thing you should do is market research. Market research is the backbone of a successful digital marketing campaign, especially in TikTok. This step delivers crucial information about your target market and its landscape.

In market research, you can conduct a statistical and qualitative analysis of your business’s performance and how TikTok audiences will perceive it. This approach helps you understand customer personas and market competition to develop new and efficient strategies.

Aside from these, you can use market research to identify and understand user trends. You do this by looking for popular trends, topics, and hashtags matching your business brand. These elements help you gain substantial views and traction on the platform.

Utilize the user-generated features
TikTok users utilize the app’s interactive features to publish their versions of a content trend. They usually use features such as duets, stitches, filters, and sounds, so leverage them to connect and engage with your potential customers.

These user-generated features have the likelihood of making your videos viral on the platform. They can also provide technical support that answers customer queries and help them learn more about your brand. Users who find it easy to know your business can be convinced to become your customers because they know you’re responsive to their concerns.

Go for influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a tactic wherein you collaborate with social media stars to reach your target audience. Generally, you aim for personalities with high social media engagements in this strategy. Most of them are either bloggers or vloggers with significant followers.

You use this content marketing type for effective brand, product, and service awareness campaigns. Different types of influencers can help you achieve this promotional goal.

Mega influencers – These are the influencers with celebrity status and over one million followers. They are usually highly sought after by huge brands.
Macro-influencers – They can be bloggers, vloggers, or podcasters with 500,000 or more followers. Although lesser than mega, their influence can still carry substantial marketing weight to promote your brand. 
Mid-tier influencers – They don’t have celebrity status. Still, they are valuable in their respective niche because of their content marketing experience. 
Micro-influencers – They may have fewer followers than the first three. However, they can still effectively promote your brand because their followers trust them.
Nano-influencers – They comprise the smallest influencer segment, with 1,000 to 10,000 followers. They are the most cost-effective in the influencer tiers, as they have expertise in creating authentic and personalized content for their audience.
The first three influencer segments can be pricey, so your best bet might be either nano or micro-influencers. Aside from being cost-efficient, they’re often enthusiastic about collaborating with brands, making them highly valuable content creators.

Create fun and engaging content
Utilize TikTok videos to create various content types. Try including brand introductions and workplace tours. You can also share inspiring stories, product creation timelapse, business-related tutorials, or whatever suits your brand identity best. Content experimentation enables you to cover many user interests that publish fun and engaging content on the platform.

For example, if your company creates web applications, you can give quick tips for developers through a short video. The video must be short but informative to make it easy for your followers to watch from the start to the end. 

Put appropriate hashtags on your posts
Hashtags are one way to promote your videos on TikTok. Naturally, you should put the appropriate ones that match your brand identity to boost digital presence,  awareness, and equity. Combine your brand-specific hashtags with general ones like #foryou, #foryoupage, and #fyp to drive substantial views and engagement to your content.

Advertise through TikTok ads
Like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you can advertise on TikTok, too. There are four types of TikTok ads that you can use to promote your business.

TopView – These are full-screen pop-up ads when users open their TikTok apps. You can use them to link an advertisement to a landing page for offers, promos, or discount codes.
In-Feed – These ads blend with other videos in users’ “For You” feed. Their advantage is that users can interact with them. However, they may skip them entirely when they’re not interested.
Branded Hashtags – You can use them to sponsor a particular hashtag term or challenge to advertise on TikTok’s “Discover” page.
Branded Effects – These ads use filters that users can add to their videos. Customize these filters based on your business branding that will resonate with your target audience.
Participate in challenges
TikTok challenges are campaigns or trends that engage users to create versions of particular tasks. These tasks include talent displays, product show-offs, hopping on a filter trend, dance performances, or lip-syncing sounds. They are usually joined with hashtags to make them easy to find.

By joining these challenges, your business can attract more potential customers. Your videos can also appear on “For You” pages, drawing more interest in getting to know your brand.

Grow Your Small Business With the Help of TikTok
TikTok can help grow your small business as it offers many opportunities to upscale your digital marketing. However, you shouldn’t rely on this social media application alone. Success and long-term growth are ideally more achieved when you combine TikTok with other online marketing channels like SEO.